Overview
- Senior White House officials told Axios between June 14 and 16 that they suspect New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan obtained near‑verbatim audio from classified Situation Room meetings and the reporters have declined to comment.
- The excerpts published from the reporters’ book Regime Change reproduce detailed dialogue from three meetings — a July 17, 2025 session about the Jeffrey Epstein files and two February meetings about the run‑up to the Iran attack — including quotes attributed to senior advisers.
- Recording devices are expressly banned in the Situation Room and the meetings are classified, so officials say confirmed audio would represent an extraordinary security breach that they are urgently trying to locate.
- The White House has not disputed the quoted exchanges and President Trump is reported to be furious, an internal leak probe is underway, the book is due June 23, and commentators are publicly urging a Department of Justice criminal inquiry though no public DOJ action has been reported.
- The disclosures name senior officials, show sharp disagreement over Israeli proposals on Iran, and could prompt heightened legal, congressional and national‑security oversight of who had access to the meetings and how the material was obtained.